Where Miss Snark vented her wrath on the hapless world of writers and crushed them to sand beneath her T.Rexual heels of stiletto snark. The blog is dark--no further updates after 5/20/2007.

12.16.2006

HH Com 46

GOTTA GET A Q, a 35,000 word young adult novel, follows former nerd and current bombshell, Bianca Hadrian. She is on her way to becoming a dating legend. In her two years of high school, she has dated a guy for every letter of the alphabet, except for Q. When she finds out that the new kid's name is Quincy, she's positive it's her destiny to date him and accomplish her dream, but that might be hard. When she meets Quincy, she sees that he carries a man bag, paints his nails pink, and uses jazz hands. Chances are he'd rather be the Homecoming Queen than date her. This is a major dilemma—until Bianca has to deal with a catastrophe of uber tragic proportions.

This device is silly beyond measure.It's useful only to make the plot happen and thus looks forced.

The idea of wanting to date a guy who's really gay was funny in Clueless...in 1995.

15 comments:

I dunno, Miss Snark. I'd like to see more. Bianca's uber tragedy might be that Quincy's hiding behind a facade, and that he brings the nerd side of her out again so that by the time she gets her date with her Q, she's learned to blend the nerd and the bombshell.

I don't think this hook represents the full story, so on that level, it fails. But I'd sure be curious to see where we go with it. I see potential in here for some fun.

Jazz hands (at least where I'm from) are hands splayed out in exagerated energy, as used in jazz dance styles in the 1980s (think "Flashdance") and earllier in Vaudeville shows (but I don't think they were called "jazz hands" then).Uh, this books sounds exactly like something Stine would've put in those fill-in-the-blank-with-new-names-but-the-same-plot books that he made tons of money off of a decade ago.

I'd put in more about the catastrophe of uber tragic proportions. Otherwise the story could be told thus:

Bianca (to Quincy): Hi, I know we haven't really met yet, but I'm Bianca. Call me crazy, but I'm trying to set a record by dating at least one guy for every letter of the alphabet. I need a Q. Want to go out? I'll treat.

Quincy: Um, there might be a problem...

Bianca: Because you're gay? Yeah, I spotted that. No problem. I just need a Q, not an engagement. And it's just for fun, anyway.

I would think that if dating the alphabet was just kids blowing someone's reputation out of proportion, then suddenly this seems reasonable. If the "Q" thing starts off as a joke - then that seems reasonable too. I would go on, good luck.

Hey. Author here. I had two plot paragraphs in my query, but I thought adding the part about the catastrophe would've been too much like a synopsis or something. Actually, I don't know what I was thinking. Not including that paragraph was a mistake.